His to Own: 50 Loving States, Arkansas Read online

  But I am. We’re both awkward and polite until I hold up the pad Thai I made for us on Sunday and say, “So I know you’re good to go on soy. I figured we’d see if you’re allergic to peanuts today.”

  “This is new,” he tells me after the first bite, “but I like it.”

  Then he eats the rest with such gusto, I know he was only being polite when he finished the tofu and quinoa on Monday.

  Wednesday is a good day. Comfortable like the food. I ask him if he’s scared about having to go to a shelter soon.

  He thinks about it and answers, “No.”

  “Why not?” I ask, because just the thought of it terrifies me.

  He shrugs. “I don’t think I get scared easily.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Another shrug. “People keep asking me if I’m scared because of all this brain stuff, but I’m just, I dunno, really fucking annoyed. I think maybe I’m like Ken.”

  “Ken…” I repeat, wondering if I’ve totally misread which team John plays for.

  But then he says, “You know. Real calm.”

  “So you’re saying you’re a very calm person?” I ask, muddling my way through his meaning. “And you don’t often get upset.”

  “No, I do get upset,” he answers, almost automatically. “But if you’re mad, you don’t need to let everybody know about it. It’s something you handle on your own. Inside yourself.”

  I blink, since that perspective is the exact opposite of the one I grew up with. “Is that a memory or a conviction?”

  “Conviction.” Again his answer is automatic, with no tripping over my relatively big word. Then he pins me with that blue stare of his and repeats, “Yeah, it’s definitely a conviction.”

  And I’m struck by a very real feeling that we’re not actually talking about Ken or John’s convictions or anything else, but are instead focusing on the thick sexual tension crackling like a heat fence between us.

  This whole professional medical distance thing isn’t going well at all, I think on Wednesday night, as I make pasta linguine and a couple of other dishes to get us through the week.

  Thursday we get back to the cognitive exercises. And it’s all very professional and on plan, right until he hands me back the phone I gave him towards the end of my lunch hour.

  “No, no,” I tell him. “That’s yours to keep.”

  “Thanks,” he answers. “I appreciate it, I do, Doc. But I want you to put some more music on it. I’m thinking about what I’ll need when I’m living at the men’s shelter.”

  “You want me to pick music for you to listen to at the men’s shelter? I mean, shouldn’t you do that?”

  “I don’t like the stuff I’ve been picking out as much as the stuff you’ve been picking out. When you’re not here, I listen to the music you chose and it feels like everything’s going to be all right.”

  Okay, I’m trying. I’m really trying, but how the hell am I supposed to keep my heart out of this when he says things like that?

  “You know that’s a song, too…” I tell him. Then I sing him a few lines of the Bob Marley classic.

  And he says, “You’ve got a good voice, Doc. I’ve been noticing that downstairs. That performing arts school probably missed you after you left.”

  I still have no idea who this John Doe was before he landed at UWV/Mercy, but I swear he must have taken a course in how to make girls blush. “I’ll put that Bob Marley song on there for you, too,” I all but croak before rushing out of his room, away from all that dangerous sexual tension.

  On Thursday night, I take a forty-five minute detour to pick up a pair of Beats headphones at the Wal-Mart in Ohio. Because they’re good headphones, I tell myself, even as my aortic nerve hums with a vision of John surrounded by the Bob Marley track as he rests in his shelter bed.

  And on Friday, the song is still playing on a slow and lazy loop in my head as I get off the elevator onto the eighth floor and round the corner of the hallway that leads to his room—

  Only to walk into complete chaos.

  “Get away from me! Get the hell away from me!”

  In the middle of the group, I can see John. He’s swinging the cane he was only recently given at a resident—a fellow third year I easily recognize as the one who asked if me getting into UWV’s program was a joke on my first day of med school.

  “Somebody get psych down here!” Dr. Pawar yells toward the nurse’s station, while a flock of young medical students stand around with their mouths agape.

  There are two kinds of doctors in this world. Those who stand there surprised when something outside their expected range of duties happens, and those who spring into action. Dr. Pawar is a spring into action kind of doctor for sure.

  And I guess I am too, because I charge through the crowd of white coats to get to John, yelling at him, “It’s okay! It’s okay!” even though I have no idea what’s going on.

  My poor John Doe is a mess. His blond hair, which looked strange before with it being half-shaved and all, is even wilder now. And his blue eyes are no longer lazy, but completely incensed. Like he’s not just going to hit the med student with his hospital issue cane, but plans to use it to beat him to death.

  Yet John weakens when he sees me standing in front of him with both my hands raised.

  “Doc, no…” he says, with a pained shake of his head. “You’re not here. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you to see me like this.”

  His voice cracks on the last sentence, and that breaks my heart even as I keep repeating, “It’s okay, John. It’s okay.”

  “That’s not my name. Fucking hell!”

  He raises a free hand to his forehead, and takes a step toward me. All the med students gathered behind me jump like a volcano just belched. Like they know this patient is going to explode.

  Somehow I manage to stay exactly where I am. For him. I read about this. I read about all of this. It’s completely normal for amnesia patients to get agitated. But John is tall and burning bright. I can feel the fear of everyone in the hallway, and I’m pretty sure security has already been called to handle the situation.

  But my expression stays neutral and completely focused on the man looming in front of me. Not the crazy John Doe, but the man I’ve gotten to know and like over the past week. There’s nothing but him, that insane voice in my head says before I can quell it with logical thought.

  “I know that’s not your name,” I assure him in a gentle voice. “We’re going to figure out your real name, I promise. But until then, I need you to calm down. You’re like Ken, remember?”

  I remind him of the conversation we had yesterday, even though I’m thinking now, just like I was thinking then, that he is absolutely, positively, nothing like Ken.

  However John nods in agreement. Like the crazy words coming out of my mouth make total sense. Then he stands there, as if awaiting my next command.

  Maybe he was a soldier, I think as I slowly lower my hands, my body relaxing from the pretense that I could have actually done something to stop him if he decided to charge me or someone else in the room.

  “What happened?” I ask the senior neuro resident with a killing look, because I already know this is more his fault than John’s.

  “I don’t know,” he answers, defensively. “We came into his room for rounds, and he jumped out of the bed and started yelling at me. Chased me into the hallway.”

  My eyes go to John, silently asking him to explain this to me.

  “He smells like something,” John answer, his voice just as confused as I must look. “Something I don’t like. No, that’s not the word. Want. Something I don’t want.”

  The med students and Pawar all turn to the resident, and I swear you can hear them sniffing the air around him like a pack of bloodhounds in white coats.

  “He’s been smoking!” a student with a ponytail yells out. “It must have triggered John Doe.”

  Then, probably remembering how John just said he didn’t like being called by tha
t name, Ponytail blushes. “I mean the patient. Maybe he’s associating something bad with the smell of cigarettes? I don’t blame him. I hate cigarettes.” She darts a mildly disgusted look at the resident.

  My eyes go to John. “Cigarettes. Old or new?” I ask him.

  “Old!” He shakes his head, as if he’s trying to get away from something inside of it. “Old! Fuck…old!”

  He’s getting agitated again. He drops the cane, and slams the balls of his palms into his forehead, doing his brain violence it doesn’t need.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him. But it’s too late for okays.

  He yells “Fuck!” again, and unleashes all of his anger and frustration in one burst. Smashing a fist into the nearby wall like it’s done something to him. I can hear the crack of bone against the solid wall, and I gasp out, “John!”

  “Don’t call me that! Don’t fucking call me that!” he yells back, as if I, and not the wall, have physically hurt him.

  The elevator dings in the distance and I can hear the thunder of boot clad feet. “No, let me…” I start to say.

  But my words are lost in the clamor of bodies shoving past me. Two large orderlies and a security guard. All yelling words at John Doe.

  I watch them haul John back into his room and strap him to his bed. Then the needle comes out, and that’s it for this episode of Amnesia Horror Story.

  “No…” I say. Maybe out loud, maybe only in my head as I watch him collapse into a sleep I know he doesn’t want.

  Chapter 5

  So John’s episode buys him another few days at the hospital. But unfortunately he’s moved to another floor where he’s put on psychiatric hold. Which means I can’t see him because the visiting hours are for family members and spouses only.

  I spend the missed lunch hours loading more brain games onto the iPad and downloading more songs onto the iPhone I’d been planning to return to him on that fateful afternoon. C-Mello, some Colin Fairgood tracks, and the very few country songs I know and like. Songs I think might be “old” to him.

  Of course, I’m not there to see him when he’s released back to the eighth floor the following week. But I swear I just about run to the stairs like a Whitney Houston song as soon as the clock strikes twelve on the first day he’s back.

  I’m a panting and sweating mess by the time I get to his new room. But I hesitate in front of his door, not sure of what I’ll find inside. He was so crazed the last time I saw him, so out of control…the way he’d yelled at me… Who knew if he even wants to see me now or if it will only upset him further?

  With a deep breath, I enter the room, braced to be thrown right back out.

  Which is why I’m surprised to find him scribbling in his journal with one hand, while the other, now encased in a white cast, rests on his folded leg.

  So he did fracture it, I think with a heavy heart just as he looks up.

  He stills when he sees me, his blue eyes so intense I find it hard to look at him.

  Hard to squeak out, “Hi! I just, um…” I search my mind for a valid reason as to why I’m here, and finally settle for the plain truth. “I was worried about you. And I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

  A beat passes during which he only stares at me. Then he says, “You came back. I didn’t know if you would. I didn’t think you’d want anything else to do with me after what happened.”

  I step forward, almost unconsciously. “No! You had an episode. It was completely understandable. And it wasn’t your fault. The only reason I stayed away is because they would only let family visit where you were, and I didn’t want to upset you. I almost didn’t come here today, because I was afraid it might—”

  I stop speaking when he reaches out, his good hand curling around the back of my head, pulling me down toward him with surprising strength. Before I can even register what’s happening, his lips have claimed mine.

  Wait. What? Who? How? When?

  My mind blanks out as his lips draw on mine, drinking me, savoring me. Making it so I can do nothing but stand there as I risk my entire medical career on one very inappropriate moment.

  “No!” I whisper, finally finding the strength to protest.

  I push away and put as much space between us as possible in the tiny room. “That’s not why I came here. I only wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  Even though I’m several feet away from him, his blue stare is just as relentless as if he’s still kissing me, still holding me.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” he answers, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Now. You okay?”

  His reply has so many shades of wrong hidden within it, I’m afraid to answer.

  But eventually I manage to lie, “Yes, I’m fine. Totally fine.”

  He studies me, blue eyes sharp as an x-ray machine. “I scared you. With the episode and the kiss. I’m sorry about that, Doc.”

  “No, you didn’t,” I start to lie again.

  But he cuts me off, “Let’s not lie to each other, Doc. I don’t want lies between us.”

  “I’m just…”

  Finding it really hard to keep myself emotionally disconnected from you.

  I settle for, “I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried about you.”

  He tenses, as if my concern hurts him somehow. Then he taps a finger against the journal, “Don’t worry about me, Doc,” he says. “I don’t want you worrying about me.”

  But how can I not?

  I quietly leave the room, and try not to look back.

  John doesn’t come down to see the kids, and I don’t bring him any more lunches.

  Three days after his return to the eighth floor, I get a call from Ken. “Social worker found a shelter over near Washington, PA to take him,” he tells me. “They’re discharging him on Saturday.”

  Not my business. Not remotely, ethically, or medically any of my business.

  But on Saturday, it’s me, and not the usual taxi, who pulls up to the curb in front of UWV/Mercy to pick John up as Ken rolls him out of the hospital in a wheelchair.

  Yes, me. Clutching the wheel; wondering what the hell I’m doing, and why I’ve taken on this particular task when I’m supposed to be at home editing the next Chemo Kids Sing Broadway video. I watch as John stands up and shakes hands with Ken.

  Ken rushes to pull open the back door of my Prius C, but John shakes his head and opens the passenger door.

  In one smooth movement, he pushes his cane through the space between our seats before settling into the two-toned seat beside me, with the blue-and-white plastic bag the hospital gives discharge patients for belongings on his lap. The bag is huge, but it doesn’t look like there’s much inside. Just the imprint of one solitary rectangle I’m pretty sure is his journal.

  “Hi,” he says to me, after waving good-bye to Ken.

  “Hi,” I answer, still not quite sure why I’m doing this. “You ready to go?”

  A beat, two, three, during which it feels like he’s speaking volumes even though only a single word is uttered. “Sure.”

  “That’s new,” he says when I push the black button toward the right of the steering wheel to start the car. Then “Are we waiting for something?” when I don’t put the car in drive.

  “Seatbelt,” I answer, nodding toward his untouched strap.

  A small frown of disgust mars his face as he pulls the belt across his body. “I don’t think I like seatbelts,” he says, after he’s clicked it into place. “Feels like I’m trapped in a goddamn cage.”

  “You were riding around on a motorcycle without a secure helmet and you don’t like seatbelts,” I say as I pull away from the curb. “So what you’re trying to tell me is you’re either a very dumb bitch or suicidal.”

  He goes tense and very, very silent in the passenger seat.

  And I regret my words almost as soon as I say them.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “That was unnecessary. I can be catty sometimes.”

  “You got nothing to be sorry about, Doc,” he answers.
>
  Yet I am sorry. For what I said. For the fact that we aren’t any closer to finding out who he really is. Also because I don’t love the idea of him having another episode like the one in the hospital in a place where there’s no trained medical personnel to sedate him.

  “So this men’s shelter I’m driving you to is run by a church,” I tell him, regurgitating what Ken told me on the phone in lieu of stewing in my anxious thoughts of what might happen to him going forward.

  It feels like I’m reassuring both him and me when I say, “I looked them up on the internet and they seem like really good people. Really good people. The community is lucky to have them. Ken and I made sure the hospital social worker called ahead to update them on your case. They’ll try to help you with some job outreach, but it’s going to be tough going because you don’t currently have a birth certificate or a social security number. They’ll have to figure out how to get you paid…”

  I trail off, scaring myself with that line of thought. Of thinking about how John will fare until his memories finally come back.

  “Anyway, here’s your phone back,” I say, reaching into my purse with my free hand and passing it to him. “Please don’t hesitate to use it if you need anything. Anything at all. And of course, I’ll try to visit whenever I can.”

  Until then, I might as well have been babbling to myself, because he doesn’t say one word until I offer to visit him.

  “No. No, Doc, I don’t want you visiting me there,” he answers with a firm shake of his head.

  “Why not?” I ask. “Seriously, it wouldn’t be a problem for me to stop in after work. It’d be like having an old fashioned home visit from the doctor. I could check in on you, make sure your healing process is coming along as it should…” Help you get home when you finally remember who the hell you actually are, I add to myself silently.

  I don’t particularly like romance novels, but for whatever reason, I feel desperately invested in John finding his happy ending.

  But he doesn’t seem at all concerned with the many practical reasons why a visit from me, a medical professional, might be a good thing.